


cancel your reservations, no more hesitations (this is on)

by goodboots



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Domestic, F/M, Gen, M/M, Post-Canon, Post-Episode: e067-069 Story and Song Parts 1-3
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-14
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-05-21 05:44:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14909459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodboots/pseuds/goodboots
Summary: Five not-quite-dates Taako has with Kravitz, after the day of story and song (and one more that is absolutely a date).





	1. bolognese

"OK, but explain," Lup says.

She's perched on the counter in her kitchen, sitting on the nice pearly marble countertops that Taako transmuted out of the tacky old vinyl for her. You’d think she would be a little more grateful, and maybe even sensible enough to notice the mood in the room and change the subject, but no, she’s still pursuing this absurd line of questioning.

Taako focuses more intently on his bolognese sauce, the fresh tomatoes half-pureed, and doesn't look at his sister as he says, "It's not serious, OK? Calm down, it's just a fling."

"You are _flinging_ the grim reaper," she replies, loud and over-dramatic.

"He's a bounty hunter, how many times do I have to say that? It’s a _job_."

"As many times as it takes for you to explain how you suddenly acquired a fling that’s serious enough for you to invite him to dinner."

They’re in Lup’s kitchen because it’s the biggest. Taako is the only one of the IPRE seven who hasn’t moved off the BoB moon base yet—even Lucretia seems to be staying elsewhere at least part-time, not that Taako’s spoken to her often enough to ask—and the kitchen in the space he used to share with Magnus and Merle is serviceable but not as spacious or functional as Lup and Barry’s, and Taako has a lot of work to do for this meal. This meal is going to be perfect. This meal has to be perfect.

"You’re panicking," Lup notes mildly. She takes the kettle off the burner and pours them both cups of tea. "Maybe you shouldn’t have invited him."

Taako is _not_ panicking, because Taako is _chill_ and he does not _panic_. He has been through more life-threatening situations (and life- _ending_ situations, come to think of it) than he can count, so if he _were_ going to panic, it would not be because his boyfriend is coming over to dinner at his sister and bro-in-law’s new place.

Taako says all this to Lup, expecting it to be such a thoroughly devastating shut-down that he even bothers to take his eyes off the celery, onions, and carrots he's finely dicing; but instead he just looks over in time to see her eyes spark with delight as he says “boyfriend” and knows instantly that he’s made a terrible, terrible mistake.

"How many dates you been on with your boyfriend?" she prods.

 _Nine_ , he thinks, but that’s too many. That’s, like, a relationship record for him, and he really doesn't want to add any fuel to Lup's please-explain-your-boyfriend fire.

"Five," he lies.

Lup whistles.

"Pottery," she says, counting off on her fingers. "And the trip to the Fantasy Costco, and the nightclub, and coffee. That’s four. What am I missing?"

A lot, honestly, mostly the naked parts, but even Taako has boundaries, and luckily he never kept his Umbra Staff in his bedroom.

"Dinner," he says.

"He took you out to dinner?"

"No, he came to my place. I cooked."

"Stuffed peppers? Or did you do the salmon?" Lup asks, carefully neutral.

If Merle were here, Taako reasons, he’d have Zone of Truth’d this conversation anyway, so Taako gives in and answers honestly:

"Veal," he admits, grimacing, knowing what he's giving away.

"Oh, Taako."

He knows he shouldn’t be this embarrassed. It’s Lup, he talks about everything with Lup. He put up with witnessing a literal decade of her and Barry’s awkward courting, and then the subsequent annoyingly-happy honeymoon phase that they’ve never actually moved fully out of.

"You can't blame me for being concerned. I mean, this guy is dead, isn't he? I'm not saying dead people can't have fulfilling lives, that would be kinda hypocritical, but he seems..."

Square. Old-fashioned. Respectable. Very un-Taako, honestly. He’s moved too far away from his personal brand.

"He seems _what,_ Lulu?"

His voice comes out sharp, annoyed. If there’s one thing about his sister that drives him crazy, it’s her propensity for dancing around the fucking issue.

She says, "He seems dangerous. He seems kind of violent. Listen, I’m sure he’s a good ally, but—"

"Whoa, violence? What violence? We had a little misunderstanding at the beginning of things, that's all."

Lup frowns. "I thought he tried to kill you? And didn't he chop off Merle's arm?"

Barry, who has up until this point been avoiding the kitchen like the plague, shouts in from the garden where he is slowly assembling the patio chairs, "He did definitely try to kill you, that is true."

"Shut up, Barold, nobody asked you!" Taako hollers back. 

"OK!" he replies, completely unperturbed. Barry's been navigating the twins’ arguments for decades, staying carefully neutral unless necessity absolutely forced him to choose sides, in which case he fell to Lup's side by default. Taako never held it against him, would have expected nothing less, but he can keep his fucking opinions on Kravitz to himself.

"You're not serious about this guy, 'Ko."

"I kind of am," he says, and means, _I am super completely absolutely serious._

"Scale of one to ten?"

He says, again and with emphasis, “ _veal scaloppini_."

Lup pauses, lips pursed, on the edge of a thought.

Barry, who doesn't take as long to formulate his thoughts and often spits them out half-formed, adds via shout, "Your boyfriend wants to take us to ghost jail, what about that?"

"You deserve ghost jail," Taako snipes back, but he mostly doesn't mean it. He zones back in on his meal preparation, avoiding his sister's eyes, and after a few tense quiet minutes she drops the subject.

"Taako?" she asks instead when he sets the sauce on a low simmer and glances over at her again. "Everything else is pretty much done. You want to help me with my hair?"

#

Lup had had short hair when went missing. Cropped up to her ears in a cute little platinum pixie, the shortest hair of the seven of them, even shorter than Magnus' hair after he got burned by that dragon. She rocked it, in the way that she rocked everything, but her newly-grown body comes out of the goo tank Barry's grown it in with blonde tresses hanging down to the middle of her back, a side-effect of the growth period.

Her hairstyle is the least of her initial concerns.

There's some work to be done, of course. They all knew there would be. The new physical body is a perfect genetic recreation of Lup, but the thing is that what Lup's cells say she should be and who Lup actually _is_ are fundamentally different, so there are alterations to be made. It's a process. She's been through it once before, almost a hundred years ago.

Last time, it was a hedge witch who helped her, during a stop their caravan made on the road; Lup was barely grown then, and some wise old woman had looked at her, always smiling and always yearning for things to be different, and offered assistance unprompted, and changed Lup's life immeasurably for the better.

This time, Lup has Taako, who is the foremost transmutation wizard in the world; and she has Merle, a badass healing cleric when he bothers to pay attention, and Lucretia, who quickly reads every single tome on bodily transmutation ahead of Lup’s re-bodying, and assists with the physical parts that need the most vital changes. 

Even Taako, who straight-up hates Lucretia these days, bites his tongue while she helps him and Merle with Lup. It's worth enduring Madame Director's presence, if it means Lup doesn't have to spend a moment longer than necessary in a form that doesn't suit her. Between the three of them, they manage to get his sister back in the body she deserves.

And Lup comes out of it perfect and whole, seared clean by fire, borne of flame, with strong limbs and clear eyes and long hair that she immediately shaves off on one side. She braids the other half over her left shoulder, and Barry helps her knot it into a platinum fishtail and cries and cries, and presses kisses against her wrist and her forehead and everyone else looks away, overcome by his sheer relief, embarrassed to intrude upon this terrible raw love.

Lup doesn't cry, she's never been that type, but she smiles from ear to ear and hugs everyone a smidge too tight, too desperate to hold on.

And everything is still up in the air that day, nothing is decided, none of the seven of them ever expected to have this much time; but it's difficult to worry about all that, especially for Taako. He puts off worrying for later, because in the meantime everything is fine. Lup's back, and everything's OK.

They have their first family dinner that night, with her freshly corporeal and clumsy, and it’s not quite right—Lucretia leaves before desert, and Davenport goes quiet for a long stretch and when Barry calls his name to get his attention he parrots “Davenport” back by rote and then looks mortified, and Angus and Carey and Killian aren’t even there—but it’s a start. The first of many family dinners, many days where they're regaining their equilibrium, setting one foot ahead of the other.

That first dinner was two months ago, and Taako has successfully avoided drawing his sort-of boyfriend into the interpersonal mess that was the IPRE original squad since then. He's been smart about it, carefully dividing his time between his family and Kravitz, who for all his ominous blister on the day of the Hunger actually seemed quite content to let Taako's sleeping liches lie.

Then somebody said it as a joke, that he should bring Kravitz one of these days—probably it was Magnus, he keeps encouraging their wider circle of acquaintances to attend. Taako suspects its a ploy so that they’ll have to move to a bigger space if enough people start coming, and then he can bring more of his eleven thousand fucking dogs. Or maybe it was Angus, since Krav was one of the few people he hadn’t yet interviewed about their participation the Day of Song and Story, and Angus is dead set on hearing everyone’s viewpoint and noting it down. The kid’s obviously been hanging around Lucretia too much.

Whoever it was, somebody told Taako he should bring Kravitz to dinner. And Taako’d laughed it off and said he’d consider it, and then—

Well, he actually considered it. He thought about it for weeks, and then he called Kravitz up on his stone of farspeech and said, "It’s, like, not a big deal. Super casual. But I’m cooking, so you know the food will be bomb, and if you’re free—"

And Kravitz had saved him from his own babbling and said, "That sounds lovely. I would be glad to attend," and asked for the time and address.

And they talked for a few minutes about other things, and then Kravitz had to go deal with some reaper business so they said goodbye and ended the call, and then Taako set down his stone and thought about what the fuck he’d just done.

#

So, dinner. It’s the first proper meeting between them all, aside from the rushed introduction during the final battle against the Hunger, and it is awkward as fuck.

Taako helps braid Lup's hair, and then dithers over his outfit before eventually deciding to wear his most subdued sequin cape. Lup wears a cashmere sweater stolen from Taako, and Kravitz remembers to wear his skin, so that's a good start. Barry's jeans are freshly pressed. The evening is cool, the tail end of summer with the sky a murky indigo, inching toward rain that never actually falls, which is fortunate: there is a strict no-umbrella rule in Lup and Barry's new household.

Magnus has been tasked with keeping Lucretia and Davenport and Merle as far away from this scene as possible. Angus is helping with the distraction.

"I was expecting the rest of your compatriots," Kravitz says shortly after he arrives. He’s been settled at the kitchen island with a glass of wine, watching Taako finish up the bruschetta. Barry and Lup are in the garden, setting the table and very conspicuously giving Taako time along with his guest.

"Yeah, what do you know, they were busy."

"They were busy," Kravitz repeats, bemused. "All your friends were busy, so it’s just myself and your sister and her husband for dinner tonight."

"I mean, if you wanna get specific."

"Your sister and her husband, who are liches," Kravitz adds. He's still smiling, doesn't look at all perturbed, which is—unexpected.

"I mean, yes," Taako says. Oh, fuck, the lich thing. Kravitz isn't going to make thing of that at dinner, is he? "This is their house, you can't tell me you're surprised they're here?"

"Not at all. I'm glad for a chance to get to know them better. Lup is obviously very important to you, and our last meeting was so brief."

That's certainly one way of putting it. Yeah, they all met briefly very briefly during the da they fought the Hunger, and if Taako hadn't been fifty-fifty on their chances of surviving against Johnny Vore, he probably have put more thought into how to approach the whole "hey, surprise I have a family and they're dead but also here?" reveal. But he was living in the moment, and it had seemed necessary to let some of the most important people in his life know about each other.

Whatever; that was months ago. Dinner is way more formal, and kind of stilted and awkward.

They get settled in the garden with plates and food and wine, and it's all hapless small-talk for thirty minutes or so, and then Kravitz steeples his hands and says, "I so appreciate your hospitality. However, I do have a rather pressing matter to discuss.”

"I think I know what you're gonna say," Taako starts, barrelling full-speed toward the breakup he is suddenly  _so_ certain is coming.

"I somehow doubt that," Kravitz replies. He's left his accent behind, which is a good sign.

"You're gonna say that the Raven Queen can't abide liches, or that the laws of life and death exist for a reason, or something like that."

Kravitz lays down his fork, half-twirled with linguine. "All right, so perhaps you do know what I was about to say."

"You're not taking my sister away from me, Krav."

Lup will definitely not be okay with them taking about her in front of her, but Taako's too panic-stricken to care. He doesn't want to choose between Kravitz and Lup, but honestly it wouldn't be any kind of choice to make.

Kravitz, thankfully, seems to know that. He nods solemnly, says, "I wasn't planning on it, no."

Lup and Barry share a look, and Taako watches them share that look and takes a deep gulp of his wine, and then Barry says to Kravitz, "go on."

Kravitz nods decisively, says:

"The Raven Queen initially demanded that you both immediately enter the Eternal Stockade, as recompense for your repeated crimes against death. While the seven of you have cheated mortality repeatedly, my queen is prepared to excuse those transgressions, as you were endeavouring to forestall a much greater beast in what you call the Hunger. However, Lup and Barry, you cannot deny that you have taken more extreme measures. This is no minor necromancy, and she feels quite strongly that to let such accomplished liches walk this plane would be an abomination."

"Yeah, that sounds about right," Lup says. Both her hands are in her lap, and her voice is deceptively steady, and Taako knows immediately that she is on the verge of casting Flame Sword.

"But we all have our vices," Kravitz continues lightly, a smile in his tone.

Wait, what?

"How so," Barry prods. It’s weird that he’s the one talking, that Lup is so aggressively silent.

"Well, for example, I myself am fond of gambling."

"No kidding," Taako interjects. "This guy lost ten thousand gold in about twenty minutes, it's actually a funny story—"

"Taako," Barry warns, just as Kravitz says, "Perhaps afterward, love," and Lup snorts.

That seems to ease the tension a little, and Lup's fingertips wander up into her braid, a nervous habit that at least means she isn't about to enact some fiery decapitation.

"I like a wager now and then, as I was saying. I heard out my queen's directive, to capture and imprison you both, and I proposed a counter offer."

His boyfriend, Taako learns, has balls of fucking steel.

Lup and Barry are pardoned, albeit with conditions. Dessert is cranberry-apple cheesecake. Taako can't fucking believe that he makes it to through dinner and to dessert with both his family and his relationship intact.

He's had a half-formed expectation that even in a best-case scenario Kravitz would end up leaving early with some reaper-based excuse, or maybe that he and Taako would both slip out right after the meal, but no. No, they make it through dessert, and coffee, and end up sitting around in the garden until it gets late enough that the chill in the air turns aggressive and they migrate en masse to the living room.

Briefly, Taako and Kravitz are left alone in the living room, and Taako takes the opportunity to sag dramatically against him, all the tension leaving his form slack and jelly-legged.

"Are you all right?" Kravitz asks, leaning into him as if checking for signs of illness. Taako presses a hand to his cheek; he thinks he’s probably still a bit pale.

"See," Taako replies steadily, “now I know firsthand that you’re a good reaper, because I felt my fucking soul fucking leave my fucking body.”

Kravitz laughs, that deep unexpected full-body laugh that always seems like a surprise. "It wasn’t that bad."

Some day, Taako was going to have to tell him how bad it actually was. Not today though.

Kravitz leads Taako to sit down, twins their hands together on the divan between them, subtle as anything. "You didn't honestly think I would agree to join you for dinner and then collect your family for sentencing, did you?"

"No," Taako scoffs, as if hearing Kravitz vocalize that particular fear wasn't embarrassing.

Lup wanders back into the room with the bottle of rose, tops up all their glasses, and then she and Kravitz are talking about poker strategies, and Barry returns with the book he’s offered to lend Kravitz and tells them all about his guest lecture series at Lucas Miller’s new academy of Arcane Bullshit or whatever it was.

And suddenly it’s after midnight, and Kravitz is rising from the sofa, making his polite goodbyes to the hosts.

He turns to Taako, says:

"I would offer to see you home, but I understand you're quiet settled here."

"It's just a temporary thing," Taako says, trying for nonchalance. He kind of wishes he hadn’t mentioned crashing here; he could get laid tonight if he had Kravitz take him back to the BoB moon base. “Couple of days, tops, while I find a place in town. The moon is kind of empty these days, you know."

"Of course."

Kravitz busses a kiss against his cheek, and Taako absolutely does not blush.

He watches as Kravitz bids goodbye to Lup and Barry and then summosn his scythe from the ether and slashes precisely through the air, as the rift in the planes unzips and Kravitz steps neatly through, as reality reseals itself, leaving only the three of them standing around the half-furnished living room.

The breath Taako had been holding in, watching all this, is startled out of him by Lup's palm smacking his shoulder.

"Holy shit," Lup says, staring alongside him at the space where Kravitz has departed. "I take it all back, Koko. You should keep him."

Taako was actually kind of planning on it.

#

Taako texts him a message on his stone of farspeech later that night:

SERIOUSLY THANKS FOR YOUR MAD GAMBIT WITH BIRD MOM. LUP AND BARRY ARE GRATEFUL. YOU DID GOOD, BONES

He falls asleep shortly after, and in the morning sees that Kravitz has responded:

FOR YOU, MY DEAR, I COULD DO NO LESS

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Griffin said the stones of farspeech have apps! Texting is an app. Fantasy WhatsApp, or whatever, please don't @ me. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	2. work in progress

The second meeting between his undead boyfriend and undead family is a little less tense, though Taako still frets over it because he won’t be there to see for himself just how badly it all goes down. It’s Lup and Barry’s first day of work as servants of the Raven Queen.

"I regret this so much," he says, sprawled out on the velvet armchair in Lup and Barry’s bedroom. "I should've just let him take you to ghost jail."

It's 7am—apparently time works slightly differently in the Astral Plane, but Kravitz had told them to be ready for 9 o'clock sharp to get started, so Taako had appeared unprompted at 6:45 with coffee and fresh croissants. He's been stress-baking all night. 

"Shh," Lup chides, propped at her vanity table and focused on applying her eyeliner. "Quit being such a worry-wort. Remember how much you stressed over our first day at IPRE intake, but it was all just boring old paperwork? This is like that, it will be fine."

They won't be full reapers for some time yet, if ever; Kravitz has made it clear that they're starting off on the bottom rung of the ladder here, but it's better than the Eternal Stockade, and Bird Momma didn't made a big deal out of Lup's new body, even though the necromancy aspect of that situation was not really kosher.

Still, Taako's got a knot in his stomach over this entire situation.

"It will not be fine. It _might_ be survivable. Just—just don’t do anything weird, promise?"

She snorts back a laugh, schools her face back into a contrite expression. "Define 'weird' please? I don't know what counts as weird for the Astral Plane."

"Don't say anything _embarrassing_. Don't talk about me to Kravitz." Actually, that doesn't sound too great either."Or talk about me a lot? Is that better?"

She frowns over at him, one eye immaculately winged.  

"Wait, hold up. Are you afraid Barry and I will drive him off, or are you afraid we'll all get along too well?"

"Yes," Taako says emphatically. "Exactly."

#

Reaper duty isn’t exactly a standard nine-to-five, and Taako’s not waiting up around Case Bluejeans just to hear how it goes. He proceeds through his day as normal, checking out a few potential houses in Neverwinter. Everything is terrible, and it shouldn't be this difficulty to just choose a place but it is, he can't simply move in to the first cute home he views like Lup and Barry did—he has _standards_.

He gives up mid-morning, heads back up to the moon and works on packing his closet. Even if he hasn't picked a place yet, it's only a matter of days and it can't hurt to be prepared. He’s getting tired of the glass orb commute from the BoB down to Faerun, and besides: everyone he cares about is down on the ground. And the one person in this world he's most actively avoiding is up on the moon too, so. Not a hard choice to make. 

He packs, anticipating the eventual move. It’s something to fill the time, sorting through his collections of crop-tops and hair clips.

Taako’s got a lot of stuff; now that he can remember his youth fully, he thinks maybe it’s a side-effect of years and years of having almost nothing, of only owning what he and Lup could carry with them on the road. He's compensated wildly for the scarce years, and he has, just, _so_ many things. Books and jewelry and trinkets and shoes.  He falls asleep in a pile of scarves, just intending a catnap, and wakes up to the sound of scuffling movement in the hallway.

A handful of potential terrible things flash through his mind—unhinged fans worming their way past the protection wards, or Lucretia invading his space to make another halfhearted attempt at amends—but when he dashes out into the living room he finds Kravitz.

He's standing in the intersection of the living room and the short hallway that leads to Taako's bedroom, scythe in hand. He’s all skeletoned-up too, and only seems to notice it himself when Taako doesn’t immediate kiss him hello like usual; his flesh immediately melts back on. 

“Did you break in here,” Taako asks, squinting at him. What time is it? What's he doing here? Kravitz doesn't ever just appear out of nowhere; he calls, or shows up outside the door and knocks, or something. Kravitz is too polite to just waltz into Taako's space. 

“You weren’t answering your stone," Kravitz replies, but has the good grace to look sheepish.

"Oh."

He can’t tell if he’s foggy from sleep or if he’s just losing his mind.

"I—can go?" he offers, gesturing as if to cut a return portal with the scythe.

"No," Taako says quickly.

Kravitz relaxes slightly, the line of his shoulders a little less tense. “All right.”

"You startled me," Taako explains. “Cha’boy’s getting too used to living alone, I guess.”

That’s not remotely true. He’s only up here maybe every third or fourth night, is definitely getting too comfortable jetting between Lup and Barry’s lovenest and Merle’s oversized seaside shack, and when he retreats to the dorm it’s to work on paperwork for incorporating his brand, or have a spa day before seeing Kravitz, or ostensibly try to pack.

He can’t fucking stand how quiet the moon is lately.

Kravitz, who might have guessed this, says, "I though, maybe you’d like to join me for a late lunch? I've got to be back in the Astral Plane in a couple hours, but there’s a place in Goldcliff with excellent lobster bisque—"

Taako squints at him, glances at the wall clock; it’s nearly three o'clock. Hatchi matchi, has he been asleep all day?

Kravitz is looking at him—looking interested, and Taako’s brain clicks into gear and he realizes why he’s staring.

"I—fine," he says, a split-second decision, whirling back around. “I mean, yes, that sounds great, I’ll just—"

He retreats into his bedroom and selects a casual outfit, black leggings and a filmy gray blouse that will match his least-ostentatious wizard’s hat. He’s going incognito these days, though he’s less likely to be mobbed for autographs in Goldcliff than he would be in Neverwinter.

He hesitates in front of the mirror, resolve wavering. He’s applied his routine glamour like clockwork before leaving the house every day for months. Lup’s rarely seen him without it, and if Kravitz happened to catch a glimpse of him unmagicked in the early morning, before he disappeared to brush his teeth and make himself look like himself—well, Krav is too much a gentleman to say anything.

That’s it. Krav is a gentleman, and he hasn’t said anything yet. He asked Taako to lunch. He came here uninvited and saw Taako all sleepy and gross and not-looking-like-himself and still offered to take him for lunch.

Huh. There might be something in that. 

# 

Taako breezes out of the bedroom five minutes later without the usual sunglasses or scarf. He probably won’t be needing the disguise tonight, not when his face is an optical illusion; he'd probably barely pass as a Taako impersonator.

“After you,” Kravitz says, rifting the directly from the dorms to a windy cobblestone laneway in Old Goldcliff. Taako stumbles through—heels are a little tricky on these old streets, and he's out of practice—and lets himself be led down a side-street and into a slanted doorway. The weatherbeaten sign outside is faded to the extent that it's unreadable.

“Cute place,” Taako says. “Cozy.”

That’s an understatement. There’s ten tables in the entire restaurant, and only two of them are occupied. 

It's spotless, he'll give credited there. Marble flooring, red-and-white checkered tablecloths, gleaming heavy silverware, and chalkboard menu up on the wall listing both the day's specials and a variety of craft cocktails with wild names.

It’s not really the sort of place Taako prefers to frequent, a little too old-fashioned try-hard for his taste, but it screams Kravitz.

Literally. The young halfling in an apron behind the bar counter looks up as they enter and screams, with a delighted smile, “Kravitz!” and comes bustling out to greet them. "You haven't been by in ages, how are you?"

"Very well, thanks, Lydia," Kravitz says warmly. "I'd heard the bisque is back on the menu, is that right?'

The halfling performs a dramatic shrug. "Get it whole you can. Rita swears she's finished refining the recipe, but just wait, some customer is going to try it and tell her she should add dill or cilantro and she'll scrap the whole thing and start over."

Kravitz laughs lightly. "Maybe so, but I thought I should try that latest incarnation. We promise not to make any comments."

She glances from Kravitz over to Taako, and her gaze becomes more pointed.

"Have you been in before?" she asks. "You look very familiar."

"Not as such, but I'd heard this bisque is bomb," Taako says.

He considers giving a fake name, then quickly discards the idea. Kravitz would probably play along, but that might make things awkward if he returns—they clearly know him here, he's obviously going to return, and what if Taako comes back with him? 

The halfling shows them to a table, first the one nearest the open windows and, seeing the look of brief annoyance on Taako's face, quickly shuffles to a corner spot, away from the street-traffic. "Trying to avoid direct sunlight," Taako says by way of explanation. "My complexion, you know." 

"Of course," she says, and hands them both menus printed on crisp white card-stock before scurrying back behind the counter and resuming her glass-polishing.

Across the table, Kravitz is watching him speculatively.

"Well," Taako says, taking up the pitcher and pouring them each a glass of ice water. "Come here often, handsome?"

Kravitz, it has been established, can't actually blush, because of the thing where his body is, like, a metaphysical construct. But he's got the whole looking-bashful-and-kinda-annoyed-about-it expression on lock.

"I don't get out much," he says, which is a hell of an understatement, "but when I do walk among the living, I have a tendency to frequent the same handful of places."

Taako looks around, and suddenly the dated decor makes a little more sense.

"They know you here." He cocks his head at the halfling server. "She have any idea what your day job is?" 

Kravitz chuckles quietly, shakes his head.

"Well, at least I'm not the only one undercover." 

" _Are_ you undercover?" Kravitz asks. He cocks his head, a distinctly bird-like gesture, and Taako's not going to wonder about where he might've picked that up. "Something's different, but I can't quite put my finger on it."

"Keep thinking on that one, thug." He glances at the menu. "Do I even need to look at this? You brought me here for soup, right?"

It's a soup sort of day, overcast, windy, unseasonably chilly. Taako looks over the menu just to see what else is happening here (nothing outrageously creative, mostly Mediterranean dishes, fish and seasonal veg, the sort of classic cuisine Taako usually passes over in favour of more exotic fare) though the chef clearly likes to update the menu often: it's wildly annotated, "fresh greens" in one listing crossed out and overwritten with "fruits de mare," or "fried salmon with quinoa" where there quinoa is clearly an update to a recipe that originally featured garlic potatoes. Some dishes are scribbled out entirely, with "under construction" marked alongside.

The chef sounds like a fucking lunatic, honestly, but it warms Taako's cold dead heart to see somebody out here innovating, if a little less adventurous than his own take on cooking.

Lydia bustles back over to take their orders and Kravitz selects the bisque as expected; then she turns to him, order pad and pencil poised, and says seriously, "And for you, Mr Taako?"

Taako smiles in spite of himself, chagrined. "The same, and a half bottle of your house red, thanks so much."

"You didn’t truly think to go unrecognized, did you?" Kravitz asks once she's departed, his brows furrowed.

"Well, yeah. I’m not wearing my glamour, I hardly even look like me. She's got a good eye."

"Oh." Kravitz sounds surprised, which is just nuts. 

"C'mon, you knew that."

He shakes his head. "I sensed something was different about you today, but—well, I honestly expected you were just nervous about Lup and Barold’s introduction to the court of the Raven Queen."

"Pfft, me, nervous for those fools? Never." He leans forward, elbow on the table, chin resting on his upturned palm. "How did that go, now you mention it?"

"I wouldn’t want to bore you with the details," Kravitz says, then immediately spills all the beans.

Apparently it went decently after all. Lup only called the Raven Queen "Birdmajesty" once, and not even to her face, so that’s a win. Barry was so nervous he wore dress pants.

They’re going to spend the next six months filing all of Kravitz’s paperwork and training on official reaper protocols, because, as he says, "I do understand their motives, but we can’t have two liches running around the department without direction. It would be... poor optics, shall we say."

"RQ’s got an image to uphold, I feel you."

Their lunch is delivered by Lydia, and an older Orc woman follows her out of the kitchen, holding a basket of sliced baguette, then takes a seat at the bar and pretends she isn't watching them closely. 

"Sorry, Kravitz," Lydia says in a stage-whisper so loud that Taako can also hear, "I couldn't _not_ tell her Taako was in the restaurant; she'd never forgive me."

Kravitz is doing that thing where his face is perfectly impassive but his posture is kinda hunched, so Taako knows he's holding in laughter.  

Taako takes one sip of the soup and stands up, which seems not to phase Kravitz, and totters over to the Orc lady on his heels.

"Are you the chef?" 

She nods, appraising, and says, "Yes. Ree."

He introduces himself, and she nods again with a frown, as if to say, _yes, obviously, you dummy._  Taako knows he's a very intimidating figure these days, but she doesn't look particularly impressed. He likes her immediately.

He takes a second sip of the bisque. It's actually pretty bomb soup, all things considered. Rich, thick broth with a smooth finish. Spicy, but not overpoweringly so, and the chunks of lobster are cooked perfectly. He meets Ree's eyes with what he knows is _not_ a very reassuring smile and says, "Your recipe?'

"My sister's," she says plainly. "She died, and her soup needed work." 

He feels a pang at that. If Lup were dead, he would absolutely continue revising her recipes.  

Taako tastes his bisque again. "That's not paprika, what is that?"

"Cayenne and truffle salt, just a pinch."

Taako considers this. He's never been a fan of truffle salt—bit played out, isn't it?—but it works here. 

"Not bad. Actually, you know what this needs?" Taako says, thoughtful. "Brandy." 

Ree's eyes go wide, a crack appearing in her passive, collected facade. "Brandy?"

Behind her, Lydia sucks in a breath and darts a look over at the wall of chalkboard specials, probably foreseeing a future where she has to scramble up there and cross out "lobster bisque" to add a "work in progress" notice and then over-write all the menus. 

"Mmm-hmm. Just a quarter cup, you know? Add it in with the sauté, most of the alcohol burns off anyway but the flavour lingers. Cognac would work too, gives it a little more depth."

She's retrieved a notepad from her pocket and is scribbling this down. "That's…you know, that might be worth trying."  

"Trust me, bubbleh, I know that of which I speak. You try it and see."

#

"Not a bad lunch," Taako concedes, once they're out on the cobbles again. Ree had ended up at their table with a glass of wine, chatting with him about her bouillabaisse, which was apparently near-perfect and would be ready for the menu again any day now, and also ten or twelve other works in progress that Taako had to admit were kind of fascinating? But it meant that he and Kravitz hadn't had much of a conversation once their food arrived, and now it was quarter to five and Krav had to get going. "You know, I do like this place. Worth a try again for that updated menu."

"Is that a hint," Kravitz asks with a smirk. He's opened a rift in the alley, and leads Taako there by the hand. "Shall I start bothering you for another date before this one is ended?"

God damn, it's unbearably cute when he leads Taako places by the hand. 

“A date?” Taako scoffs. "What date? Homie, that was lunch, practically business."

"Is that so," he says, but he's fighting a smile. Taako can just tell.

"Mmm-hmm," he says, crowding Kravitz back against the alley way. "Now, there's nothing we can do now to rectify the situation, you know? Date window has passed, and you have to get back to work, right?"

He nods, and ducks his head, and Taako's being kissed like Kravitz is never going to see him again, which is a terrible hyperbolic thought and he immediately hates himself for coming up with it. 

"I'll call you," he says, then swoops in for another kiss; when Taako has to pull back for air it's five o'clock, he knows by the annoyingly loud clanging from the clocktower two streets over. Kravitz adds, "I've an assignment that might take several days, perhaps a week or so, but I will call as soon as I can."

Taako blinks away the weird lightheaded feeling that sometimes comes from a surprise Kravitz make-out. "Yeah, OK. I'll, uh, I'll be looking forward to that."

He can deal with that. Several days, whatever, he'll live.

He steps backward through the rift into his darkened, empty moon-base living room, and ignores the pang at how empty it is, how disappointment flickers hot in his throat when the rift zips closed after him.

God, he really needs to move soon; living alone is doing weird shit to his brain, now he's all _lonely._

Instead of wallowing, as is his first instinct, he sets himself to packing. By morning, half the place is in neatly stacked and labelled boxes, ready to get out of here any day now. Progress! 

And if he sleeps with his stone under his pillow until he hears from Kravitz again, well, who's going to know?

**Author's Note:**

> Griffin said the stones of farspeech have apps! Texting is an app. Fantasy WhatsApp, or whatever, please don't @ me. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
